Crashed PC - disc read error

mariejader

Please can someone help me, earlier this year my pc decided it would play up it's several years old running XP etc so I decided it was time to purchase a new computer which I did.

Unfortunately I never managed to remove my photo's from the old pc, when I turn it on now all I am getting is

Disc read error press ctrl alt del (it then re-boots and it goes back to the same screen again).

Is there any way I can get the photo's? please can someone help me, I have the rescue disc but when I attempted to load it, it advised me it would delete everything so I stopped it.

Conor_3

You are looking at paying someone to do it. A disc read error isn't a good one to be seeing and usually means the drive has failed. Occassionally a software error will cause it but on a PC several years old, I think you're looking at a mechanical failure.

There are recovery companies but they're not cheap. Some do advertise cheap prices but they merely run software on to try and recover the data which doesn't help if it's a mechanical failure.

mariejader

Thank's for the prompt reply Conor, it's not what I wanted to hear but thought it may be the case, we managed to open it on Thursday morning and get into my pictures but I left it running as I had to go out and it had crashed again when I came home

DatabaseError

best, free, bet is to remove the hard drive from the old Pc, and fit it to the new one as an extra or slave then just drag the files across (if the disc reads)

Donnie

You could try using a Live CD in conjunction with a USB drive in order to retrieve the info from your HDD. It won't hurt to try.

mariejader

You could try using a Live CD in conjunction with a USB drive in order to retrieve the info from your HDD. It won't hurt to try.

can you explain this a bit more? what do you mean by live cd

Donnie

Info here: Live CDs

Choices here.

If after reading you still don't understand, I'll try to help further.

mariejader

thanks Donnie for you help I have had a look at the choices screen and there are so many I am totally confused!!

I was hoping to download onto a 2gb stick so that I could plug it straight into the old pc so am I right in thinking I would be better using Feraga then I guess I have to search for a download?

Or would you suggest another programe I don't really understand what the difference is to be honest I am running XP don't know if that makes a difference

Donnie

You would be better off downloading one of the images and burning the image to a CD using Imgburn or the like. You will need your USB drive for saving your files.

See your PMs.